Erica

Crunchy Flaxseed Peanut Butter

June 16, 2014 by Erica

Happy Monday from me and my tummy full o’ PB!

Some weekends call for a couple peanut buttery snacks, and this was definitely such a weekend in our household. More so for Nate than for me – he ran his seventh marathon on Saturday! But he prefers almond butter, so I had this peanut butter all to myself. I love it when things work out that way.

Spectating a marathon is a hard job, too, guys. Let’s be real. I had to wake up early, stress about how Nate’s race was going, drive around to see him, try to think of encouraging things to say, hold my bladder so I didn’t miss him go by… tough job! At least as tough as running 26.2 miles! OK, not really… not by a long shot.

In fact, Nate makes race spectating pretty darn easy because there are no other runners around him… just a Kenyan a minute ahead of him and the next pack of guys more than half a mile behind. No crush of runners blocking traffic or anything like that, so I was able to drive along the course and see him at 7 different spots. I almost feel like I’m annoying him when I keep popping up! Too bad I can’t hop in and run with him like he did for me during my last half… his pace is so smoking fast that I could probably sprint along for a quarter mile max. He is a speedy one!

It was a beautiful morning, both for running and spectating, and Nate took second place with a time of 2:27. So proud of him! The guy works so hard, and though I appreciate his effort and dedication every day of the week, it’s nice to see him be recognized for it by others. As for whether it makes those 100-mile weeks worth it or not… well, you’ll have to ask him.

I didn’t want to miss out on the running fun, so I woke up early, too, and got my long run in before the start of the race. Yep, I am that crazy girl who ran 10 miles at 3:45 AM. When did I get like that?! I don’t know, but I can tell you I was plenty glad to get my long run over so early in the weekend and to put the early wake-up to good use. That’s how I earned my peanut butter, guys! And you better believe I took advantage.

Speaking of which, let’s switch over to peanut butter. Food talk is always better than running talk.

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Blue Cheese Polenta with Rosemary Blistered Tomatoes

June 13, 2014 by Erica

Wanna know something fun? We’re getting married in 99 days!

We’re in double digits – this thing is really gonna happen!

I mean, I think it’s gonna happen. As soon as I get my dress fitted, buy wedding shoes (I want peep toe flats!), pick out the menu, and buy us some plane tickets home. All of the planning is under control for the most part, but a few of the remaining to-do list items are pretty necessary for us to tie the knot. For example, I think it would be nice if we showed up for our own wedding, don’t you? Unfortunately, cross-country airfares seem to be plotting against us…

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Watermelon Avocado Gazpacho

June 11, 2014 by Erica

I think I may have died and gone to heaven.

Not the kind of heaven where you get all your tax dollars back in a lump sum (because, all religion and politics aside, let’s face it: that would be awesome), but the kind where you’re surrounded by watermelon. How thrilled would you be if the reward for a lifetime of good deeds was towering cubes of juicy watermelon everywhere you turned for the rest of eternity? I think I would be pretty pumped. If I’m lucky, my tax dollars will be tucked in there somewhere, too.

Sigh… a girl can dream.

The main surprise here is that I even tried a new kind of gazpacho. Prior to this fabulousness, regular tomato gazpacho was the only flavor ever to grace my blender. My mistake, because I’ve been missing out big time! I was inspired to blend up this batch after enjoying a particularly delicious cup of watermelon gazpacho at a restaurant, and now I’m afraid this may turn into the Summer of Gazpacho. I mean, I can’t think of a single fruit or vegetable that wouldn’t taste delicious as part of a tomato-y chilled soup. Maybe that’s an exaggeration… I haven’t brainstormed very hard. But still, you get the picture: YUM.

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Blueberry Tahini Smoothie

June 9, 2014 by Erica

It is that perfect weather time of year. June! June, I love you.

It’s perfect patio temperature. Warm in the sun, cool in the shade, and because we live in the West, perfectly dry all the time. It’s light in the morning when I wake up, and light in the evening when I leave work. Sometimes it’s even light out when I’m thinking about going to bed at night… but I try to stay up until dark. Otherwise I might have to sacrifice my adulthood.

It’s also perfectly green right now. Utah is usually not that green of a place. But somehow this year we had good snowfall and a relatively wet spring, so things haven’t started to shrivel into wildfire tinder just yet. And with just a bit of snow still in the mountains overhead, it’s just gorgeous!

The weather is also great for running, as long as you get your run over early enough before the sun really starts baking. To me, there’s nothing better than running in the cool part of the day before the rest of the city wakes up. After work runners: I don’t know how you survive at this time of year. It is still HOT out at 6 or 7 pm, and I mean, if you wait until later than that, when do you eat dinner?! I am very concerned for you. You are going to be heat stroked and hungry – my two worst nightmares. My workout schedule clearly revolves around temperature and food.

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Kale & White Bean Tacos with Chipotle Fruit Salsa

June 5, 2014 by Erica

Let’s talk about being busy.

Busy-ness: I never thought I was one of those people that liked it. You know, the kind of person that fills their calendar to the brim with commitments until they have no room to breathe. I mean, I guess that’s everyone to a certain extent these days (and it’s certainly a hot topic), but frankly, I’m just too lazy to be one of the extreme cases. I like to have time to myself; I hate the feeling of a million demands on me and my time.

But lately, I’ve started to think that maybe I’m more like those overcommitters than I thought. I’ve noticed that being busy makes me feel important and that, actually, I have no happy medium between busy-ness and boredom. If I’m not crazy-stressed, I’m automatically bored. What! How can this be?

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